Treasure of Light (The Light Trilogy) (57 page)

They’d been in the camp for two days. Guards had thrown white sacklike robes at them and told them where to sleep and eat. Men above puberty age had been asked for blood, urine, and sperm samples, but little else had happened, and their anxious hearts eased more every hour. Rumors weaved rampantly through the ranks that they’d be going home soon, that the Magistrates had only called them here to keep them out of the way while they sterilized the city or to frighten them into submission by separating them from their families.

No one wanted to believe the maw to the pit of darkness gaped before them, ready to swallow them up forever.

All the people had taken seats now, most down front. And guards began to file in, circumscribing the amphitheater, rifles slung over their shoulders. The guards were of two types: Those who refused to look them in the eyes, or those who glowered cruelly as though in anticipation of what lay ahead. Every time Pavel had to be near any guard, a tightening like the hands of doom closed around his throat and he couldn’t breathe for a while.

“You all right, baby?” he whispered to Yael.

“I’m okay, Dad,” she answered, eyes wide. He squeezed the tiny hand tucked securely in his own. Thank Epagael, no one had asked young boys for medical samples, though his heart stopped when he wondered why not.

On the stage far below, a panel of Magisterial soldiers sat, lips pursed tightly, some with deep curiosity in their eyes, other filled with disdain. The heavy gold braid on their shoulders marked each and every one as a high level officer. Major Lichtner sat at the far end, a detached look of amusement on his square face.

Jasper leaned sideways. “Why so many big boys in this godforsaken place?”

“I don’t know.”

“What are the special insignias on their sleeves?”

Pavel shrugged and shook his head. “I can’t tell from this distance. Maybe some sort of science department designation. I’ve seen similar ones in the botanical labs.”

A few minutes later, a roly-poly little man with white hair, a pointed beard, and ears that stuck out like shells glued to his head walked to the central podium. His voice boomed around the amphitheater, high and a little shrill.

“Good evening. Please quiet down. Yes, that’s better. Thank you. I’m Colonel Jonathan Creighton, in charge of the Neurobiology Division of Sciences at Palaia Station.”

He went on to introduce the other eight doctors who sat at the long table. Pavel shivered softly. On the horizon, he could see clouds gathering into blue-black bastions piled hundreds of feet high. Their edges shimmered with the palest of greens.

“… Doctor Hyde, would you like to explain our program, please?”

Pavel watched a thin man over six feet tall stride to the counter. Brown wavy hair clustered around his rosy cheeks. “Thank you, Doctor Creighton.” He smiled sternly at the audience. “In simplistic terms, we are studying why Gamants are so easily agitated—why you’re quarrelsome and carry out your frustrations through irrational and often violent means. Humans of your type, we’ve found, have substantially different levels of metabolites in their cerebrospinal fluid. Noradrenaline, serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine—”

“What the hell’s he talking about?” Grandpa groused indignantly, eyes narrowed.

“Brain chemicals. Shhh, let me listen.”

“Chemicals for what?”

“Neurotransmitting.”

“And what, in the name of God, is—”

“Shhh!”
Pavel made a hushing gesture by snapping his fist closed on air.

“… In short, we suspect Gamants, through the long process of evolution, have developed different arousal systems than non-Gamants. Our goal here is to determine
if
that is so, and then how we can alter your biochemical profiles to suppress aggressive sensation seeking.”

Pavel’s stomach roiled. He desperately wanted to ask a question. Would they allow it?

Timidly, he released Yael’s tiny fingers and stood up, raising a hand. The men on the stage seemed disconcerted, glancing awkwardly at each other. Lichtner shrugged at Hyde and he responded by exhaling loudly before condescending to ask, “Do you have a question?”

Voice quaking, Pavel responded. “Yes, Captain. Could you tell me, are you studying aberrant chemical processes brought on by environment, or genetic causes?”

Hyde frowned as though uncertain whether to answer. Knees trembling, Pavel waited as the scientists conferred on exactly how to respond. All over the room, people looked to Pavel for guidance, hope bursting in their eyes. As though, he, of everybody there might be able to tell them what all the scientific hoopla meant.

Finally, Hyde cleared his throat, responding, “Both.”

“You’re …” he swallowed nervously. “You’re searching for a genetically determined malfunction in the production of a transmitter like—like dopamine?”

“Partially. We’re researching how neurotransmitters trigger the misfiring of nerve circuits, and how the misfiring sets the brain’s interpreter up for devising a
wrong
method of coping with what it perceives as reality. Now, who else has a question?” Hyde extended a hand and panned the audience, obviously trying to shut Pavel up.

But fear consumed him. He couldn’t leave it be. “Wait!” Pavel blurted suddenly, throwing up both hands. “Are you studying limbic system and temporal lobe abnormalities?”

“Certainly. Now, please—

“Wait!
Wait!
If you find that these abnormalities are genetically linked, then simple chemical correction won’t—”

“Please, sit down! You’ve had your turn.”

“Do you think the genetic complement comes from the X chromosome or—”

“What is your name, Mister… ?”

He gripped the chair back in front of him for support. “Jacoby. Pavel Jacoby.”

Hyde flicked his hand at a man who wrote it down and Pavel quailed. “Sit down, Jacoby. You and I, we’ll discuss this in more depth later, all right.”

“All right,” he mumbled and dropped unsteadily back to his chair, feeling as though his name had just been recorded in Epagael’s Book of Judgment.

A man in the front row shouted, “What are you doing with our women? Why can’t we stay with our families?”

Hyde looked uneasily to Creighton who, in turn, leaned forward to stare at Lichtner. The major nodded irritably and folded his arms across his broad chest, then signaled the guards to be on the alert. They unslung their rifles, gripping them tightly, daring anyone to object. A din of frightened voices rose to rumble through the ampitheater.

Creighton waddled back to stand beside Hyde. He waved his arms and after several long moments, the cacophony settled down. “You’ll be reunited with your families soon. Just cooperate.”

Questions continued to be tossed, most dealing with how long the study would last, what the words “control group” meant, and when everyone could go home again.

But Pavel’s head whirled in thought, spiraling with terror for Aunt Sekan and all the other women who’d come from his neighborhood. He squeezed Yael’s hand so tightly, she patted his arm, whispering, “Daddy? That hurts a little. Just a little, though.”

“I—I’m sorry, baby.” He released her fingers abruptly and kissed her forehead, then blindly stared at the red socks showing beneath her long white robe. Oh, Lord,
when
would they find out her sex? It was no longer a question of “if.” And what would they do?

“Pavel?” Grandpa muttered as he eyed the guards maliciously. “Later, I want you to explain all this. Eh, you hear me?”

“I hear you.”

“In boring detail.”

“Yes, all right.”

Throughout the rest of the lecture, Pavel struggled to remember his neurobiology classes. He hadn’t been particularly interested at the time. He’d wanted to refine strains of food crops to feed more people more nutritiously. Now … now he wished he’d listened more carefully.

Kraeplein, Bleuler, Gazzaniga, Slomon, Buckner.
He recalled the names clearly, but not so clearly what they’d theorized.

Almost unconsciously he voiced his fears. “Jasper, do you think they did this on Kayan or Jumes?”

“I’d say that’s a good guess.”

“And they resisted. How could the people have mustered the courage? I feel as weak as a baby in the face of this.”

“Sure, they resisted. People on the more backward planets get the milk of bravery from birth. Because everything around them is a threat: the weather, the animals, the very soil itself in places like Jumes.”

“Are you saying we on Tikkun are all cowards?”

“Most of us. We’ve lived in the safe palm of the Magistrates for so long, we’ve forgotten how to act when we’re afraid. We expect that if we
lie down and cover our heads
the government will let us live out of the goodness of its heart,” he said brutally, but he patted Pavel’s back. “We have to learn to fight again—just like the people on Kayan and Jumes.”

“How can we learn, here, in this butcher shop?” he whispered in a strained voice, twisting his hands in his lap.

“We’ll learn—or we’ll die.”

Pavel looked around the room at the haunted faces, starved for any scrap of understanding, any lie to make them feel better.

They listened for another half hour and finally Creighton announced, “That will be all for today. We’ll be assigning individuals to specific groups tomorrow. Please have all of your biographical information sheets filled out.”

Curious, Pavel thought, that Block 10 had even held such an explanatory meeting. Of course, much of it must have been lies, but why hold it at all? Did they want to calm their victims’ fears or…. Then he noticed that several of the people who’d dared to ask questions were being herded together.
Isolating possible troublemakers?
“Oh, no.”

The guards aimed their rifles at the audience, prodding some people to get up and shouting at others to move. Pavel gripped Yael’s hand and they followed Jasper down the aisle and toward the rear doors.

Just as they arrived, a big redheaded guard stepped out and shoved his rifle into Pavel’s stomach. “You, Jacoby,” he said. “Creighton and Lichtner want to see you. Fall out of line and stand here beside me until the rest are gone.”

“Why do they want to see me?” he blurted, heart jamming against his ribs. “I’ve done nothing wrong!”

“Don’t make trouble, Jacoby. You’re already in enough as it is. You like living, eh?”

“Daddy?” Yael murmured miserably, gripping him tightly around the legs.

Jasper came forward and quickly pulled Yael away. “I’ll take care of your son. Go, Pavel. Do as the guard says.”

Trembling, Pavel nodded and went to lean heavily against the wall. People shuffled by, some weeping and wiping their eyes on white sleeves.

Pavel lifted his gaze to the world beyond the glass prison. Night had fallen. The dust devils in the distance whirled across the twilit sands like coils of dove-colored velvet. Though the room around him buzzed with conversation and tramping feet, he could feel the quiet of the desert, could almost smell the dry sage-scented winds.

Another guard strode up the aisle to stand on the other side of him. They’d pinned Pavel between them, these huge giants with gleaming rifles.

“You think you’re smart, Jacoby?” the new dark-haired guard inquired malevolently. “Hmm? You stupid fool. You opened your mouth and now you’re in for it.”

Pavel drove his hands deep into the pockets of his robe and clenched them into tight, shaking fists. He didn’t make eye contact with the man, for fear the guard would see his terror and take advantage of it. “What are you talking about? I just asked some questions. That’s all. Just some simple questions.”

Dark Hair chuckled condescendingly. “You’d have done better to have poisoned yourself in your bed last night than spoken up like a know-it-all at this meeting. You think they really want to
talk
to you? Maybe they’ll give you a medal, eh? For being smart enough to have figured out what they’re up to.”

Redhead laughed cruelly, eyeing Pavel like a pile of manure. “You bet. A medal.”

“I don’t want any trouble. I’ll cooperate any way I can.”

Dark Hair raised his brows at Redhead. “He doesn’t want any trouble. Poor Jacoby. He’s just trying to mind his own business.”

“Sure. He’s a nice guy.”

They both laughed rudely and spent a minute shoving Pavel back and forth with their rifle butts. He stumbled, still not meeting their cruel gazes.

“Hey, Jacoby?” Redhead whispered conspiratorially. “You see that big square building out there, across camp? Hmm? You’re a smart boy. You know what it’s for?”

“No,” he murmured humbly.

“You ignorant bastard. You stupid Gamant filth. These scientists here, they’re not just going to do some harmless studies. They’re trying to figure out how to kill you all the most efficiently—with the fewest outcries from the rest of the galaxy.”

“Yeah,” Dark Hair threw in. “They can’t do it outright. Because some simpering fools might mind. So they’re doing it undercover in a war zone. Sure, funny things happen in wars—people understand that.”

“But there’s no war on Tikkun.” He looked up bravely, gaze going from one haughty face to the other. He noticed Dark Hair had a tooth missing in front. “A few skirmishes, a few minor—”